The Sikorsky MH-60R Seahawk helicopter settled in to cruise five hundred feet above the waves.
“Knight Rider Six Five, this is Icepack. Say ‘Status,’ over?” Icepack was the call sign for the air surveillance controllers in the Combat Information Center aboard the USS Lexington, a Ticonderoga-class cruiser and the helo’s mothership.
“Long run complete, Icepack,” the pilot replied into his headset. “Ten miles due south of Masirah, point five, inbound mother, overhead plus forty-five, two-plus zero-zero. Five souls.”
The Knight Rider had just picked up the ship’s new chaplain in Fujairah, a major airhead and refueling port in the United Arab Emirates. Its strategic location outside the Straits of Hormuz allowed U.S. ships in the area a chance to top off before heading into or out of the Arabian Gulf. But Fujairah was no shore station; coming that close to land was too dangerous, as the USS Cole learned in Yemen in 2000, when terrorists blew a hole in the destroyer’s hull while it was at pier. Now the U.S. Navy refueled at sea. Underway replenishment, or UNREP, is a ballet of tankers and supply ships refilling warships on the high seas. Fujairah was a primary stage.
“Is that Masirah Island?” the chaplain asked through the headset, the rising sun lighting up its beaches. They had just flown over Oman, and this island was the last dry land between them and their ship. The chaplain had the enthusiasm of a tourist.
“Affirmative,” the crew chief said. “Our last bailout point.”
“Say again, fuel state?” Icepack said.
“Two-plus zero-zero. Full bag.” Standard aviator lingo for “two hours.”
Radio silence. The pilot sensed a change of mission coming.
“Thank you, Mr. . . . ah, Mr. . . .” said the chaplain, as he fumbled with his headset. He was fresh from the States, fresh from seminary, fresh to the navy.
“Dice,” the pilot said.
“Dice?”
“Call me Dice. Call sign ‘Dice.’”
“Okay, Mr. Dice.”
“Just Dice.”
“Okay . . . Dice. I wanted to thank you for . . .”
“Not now, zip lip. Standing by for tasking from Icepack.”
“Oh, right. I understand.” He clearly didn’t.
“Chief,” Dice said to the crew chief. “Please explain things to the Chaps.”
“Father,” the crew chief said. “Shut up.”
“Knight Rider, this is Icepack. FRAGO to VID. Small group-three freighter with an aft pilothouse. Sending coordinates.”
“Copy, Icepack,” Dice replied, and changed course.
“What is it?” the chaplain asked, unable to stop himself.
“FRAGO.”
“What’s that?”
“Fragmentary order. A new mission.”
“So we’re not going to the Lexington?”
“Not yet. They want us to check out a freighter first.”
“Is that safe?”
Dice turned off the chaplain’s headset. Fuckin’ newbies, he thought. He had a freighter to find before he could go home, and the chaplain’s prattle was giving him a headache.
Open ocean and gray haze. For forty minutes, that was all they saw, which pretty much sums up every day when flying Navy Air.
“Dice, I think we got something,” the copilot said. A blip showed on the fringe of their radar screen.
“That must be it. Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later they could see the freighter. Dice switched to maritime channel 19, the universal channel for bridge-to-bridge communication.
“Cargo ship in vicinity Socotra Island,” he called down to the ship, “this is U.S. Navy helicopter Six Five, half a mile off your port beam. Request description of your cargo manifest and destination port.”
Silence.
The helo closed to about four hundred yards from the freighter’s bridge so they would know they were the one being hailed. Dice repeated the call.
“Captain, captain!” the radio operator called, stumbling to the bridge. “A U.S. Navy helicopter is hailing us. They’re off our port bow.”
Captain Goncalves grabbed binoculars and peered out the left windows. In the distance he could see the chopper, gray on gray.
Not good, he thought.
“Cargo ship in vicinity Socotra Island,” the chopper pilot repeated.
“Captain, what do you want to do?”
Goncalves just stared through the binoculars.
“Captain.” It was the first mate this time, just arriving at the bridge. “If we don’t answer, they’ll come back with two choppers of marines.”
Goncalves turned suddenly, seized the helmsman by the collar and dragged him to the bridge radio. “You’re Filipino, yes?”
“Y-y-yes, captain,” the man answered nervously.
“Then answer in Filipino.”
“In Tagalog?”
Goncalves grabbed a three-ring binder from the navigator’s desk and beat the man.
“Stop! Please, stop!” the man pleaded.
“Did I not just give you an order?!”
The man whimpered to the radio.
“Speak, damn it,” the captain said.
“What should I say?”
The captain hit him across the face with the binder. The man started speaking ragged Tagalog.
“I am bihag sa barko ito. Tulungan mo ako!”
“What the hell is that?” the copilot asked.
“I am bihag sa barko ito. Tulungan mo ako!”
“It’s a foreign language,” Dice said. “Sounds like Spanish.”
“Amateurs.”
“Or smugglers. Let’s take a closer look,” Dice said, as he nosed the Seahawk toward the ship.
“They’re coming toward us!” the helmsman shouted.
“What the fuck did you tell them?” Goncalves demanded.
“N-n-nothing! I swear it!” said the Filipino, but it didn’t save him from the binder.
“Get some hands on deck! Look busy,” the captain said. “Do . . . routine things.”
Dice maneuvered carefully around the freighter, hovering fifty feet above sea level.
“Icepack, this is Knight Rider. I’ve located the cargo ship. Name is the Eleutheria, Malaysian flag. They are not answering in English.”
“Roger, Knight Rider. What do you see?”
“Wait one.”
This was Dice’s third tour in the Gulf, and he’d seen more than his share of smugglers. Once, he’d seen a tugboat dragging a submersed shipping container of cigarettes. He circled the freighter, looking at the machinery, tackle, other things that a normal cargo ship would use. They looked like they had been recently operated. Of course, the ship was in such disrepair that it was hard to tell. Men on the bridge were waving.
“Knight Rider, we ran it. It’s already been bagged and tagged. Not our target. Return to Mother.”
“Roger, Icepack. Returning to ship.”
“They’re flying away,” the first mate said, waving at the helicopter.
Assholes, Goncalves thought, also waving.
“That’s the last we’ll see of them,” the mate said.
“No. There will be more.”